Play-Doh Was Originally Made to Clean Wallpaper
A dying company owes its success to a nursery school teacher
This week, I went to trivia with a couple of my friends, and the bonus round’s question was “what children’s toy was originally made as wallpaper cleaner?” We were very unsure and had no idea. We originally bet bubbles and I put in some outrageous answers, like lightsabers or G.I. Joes. We won trivia, but only because we played it safe and didn’t bet that many of our points. All the other teams bet the maximum, and no one got it right. The most common answer was Silly Putty, which in itself was a great guess.
No — the children’s toy that was originally made as a cleaning product was Play-Doh. I was pretty shocked, so I decided to look into the history of how Play-Doh developed, and how it went from a cleaning product to a children’s toy.
Let me just say I love Play-Doh. I used to try to make all sorts of animals with it as a kid — the octopus was particularly difficult. My mom probably had to stop me from trying to eat it. In my particularly misbehaving days as a child, I tried throwing Play-Doh at my classmates.
This is the story behind Play-Doh and Kutol Products Company, the Ohio cleaning products company that made it.
